Hanging By A Thread Of Mexican Rope
Pop music plays in the background as I scramble for a higher hold in the sheer granite cliff face a hundred feet above the rocks below. I take another hold, then another, sweat streaming down my face in the intense desert sunlight. Suddenly I realize I’m overextended - I feel my hand slipping as the music builds to a crescendo. My only hope is an impossible jump to a nearby ledge so I cast my fate to the winds and leap from the cliff just as my hand slips from its hold….
Wait a minute. That was Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2. I always get the two of us mixed up. Seriously though, I did go rock climbing, although it was in Mexico, not the Grand Canyon. Well, not yet. As I wrote in my last post, my primary reason for visiting El Potrero Chico was because of the excellent climbing reported there. So bright and early the next morning (11:00 A.M. IS bright and early when I’m on vacation!) I met my guide, a local who spoke quite good english. I got fitted for a safety harness, waived the option of a helmet (my head is my least vulnerable spot) and tried to find some climbing shoes.
Climbing shoes are special shoes that resemble a cross between ballet slippers and sneakers. They have heavy rubber toes and heels for extra traction. Unfortunately, it seems that I have larger feet than anyone in Mexico because the largest they had was about two sizes too small for me. Granted, climbing shoes are supposed to be tight but I couldn’t feel my toes for about a week afterwards!
The whole package cost me $80 for a guide, shoes, harness, rope, etc for 4 hours, and it was well worth it to me. They do offer full-day packages, as well as group discounts, but I strongly suggest you go for the half-day if you have never climbed before. I am fairly athletic and I couldn’t have gone a full day of non-stop climbing. Not and really enjoyed it anyway.
Anyway, after that we hiked to the base of the mountain and, since I had never done it before, started with a very simple climb. It had a steep slope, but plenty of hand holds. For those of you who are climbers, it was a 5.7. For those of you who aren’t climbers, it was the bunny slope of the mountain. I climbed my way up it in a few minutes, and so we proceeded to a slightly harder one, and then harder, etc. All in all in four hours I did a total of 8 climbs, the last two being 5.10+, which are very challenging climbs.
My last climb of the day. This is a 5.10d climb, known to locals as “Golden Puff”. The car is included to give you perspective. I’m the dot below the big outcropping. The goal in this climb is to stand above that outcropping and survey the valley, master of all you survey. For a few seconds anyway.
This climb was by far the hardest, and therefore the most fun. And I almost didn’t make it. In my defense I had been doing some very rigorous climbing for four straight hours without a break, with no prior experience. What makes it so hard is that you get about 80 feet up and you reach the outcropping, which juts out about three feet from the main cliff.
Now this would be hard enough by itself, because you have to support more of your weight with your hands since you are leaning out from the wall. But this particular spot doesn’t have any good hand holds, and you’re left clinging to holes in the rock with two or three (by now tired) fingers on each hand, with shaky toeholds. Of course, it’s against the rules to cling to the rope or anchors in the rock.
And so I fell. Until now I hadn’t lost my grip on any slope, but this one was tough. I’m in fairly good shape but no matter how hard I tried, my fingers kept slipping from the rocks above. I tried again, and fell again. Fortunately my guide was holding the anchor rope and so I only fell about eight feet each time, and the bright side about climbing an outcropping is that when you fall, you fall into air - not rock. This is a huge plus, for obvious reasons.
I think it was about the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I was determined not to let some #!*%! mexican rock beat me. And so on the fourth time, with encouraging words being shouted by my guide and the other bystanders, I managed to maintain my handholds and crested the rock and stood where no geek had stood before!
Well, no geek that I knew of. But that’s beside the point. I rested on my laurels (and narrowly avoided sitting on a cliffside cactus) and looked out across the broad vista and savored the moment. The crisp wind. The sounds of children playing echoing up the canyon. And I thought to myself, as spanish rock music boomed in the distance, this must be how Tom Cruise felt. Or how he would have felt if he hadn’t been on a sound stage in Hollywood in front of a blue screen.
And as I stood there I decided two things. That I had SO earned that Piña Colada waiting for me back at the lodge… And that I was DEFINITELY doing this again!
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Posted on June 26th, 2007 by Natnee and filed under Mexico |
